Page 103 of Happily Never After

A moan escaped her lips as she raked her nails down his back. Legs dropping to the floor, she swapped their positions. They had spent so much of the past year swept up in her drama. Tonight was about him.

Pressing him to the wall with one hand, she knelt in front of him. Her knees wobbled uncomfortably on the hardwood floor, but she barely noticed. Her hand trailed down the familiar topography of his torso—seriously, how was a girl supposed to concentrate with abs like these right in front of her?

She unbuckled his belt and tossed it aside. The zipper slid down easily, and the pants puddled around his ankles. She freed him from his boxers and took him eagerly, greedily into her mouth.

His hand fisted in her hair. He looked down through long lashes and locked eyes with her. She was going to make him feel the way he made her feel. Safe. Loved. Cherished. Desired.Thiswas what was important. As long as they had each other, she had all she needed. It was about time she showed it.

“Come here,” Luke grunted a minute later, grabbing her by the hand. He pulled her up to him and kissed her, gripping her like he would never let go.

She melted into him and the stress slipped away from her shoulders. There would be all kinds of problems to confront tomorrow. But now, in this moment, it was just the two of them.

He picked her up again, carried her across the threshold into the living room, and flung open the blanket that covered the entrance.

“Oh, be careful,” Claire said. “There’s?—”

It was too late. A cardboard box crumpled beneath her lower back. Luke had tossed her gently into the fort and directly onto a pizza box. The smell of marinara was stronger than it had been a moment ago.

“Uh oh.” She rolled onto her belly.

Luke burst out laughing.

“What? What is it?” She sat up on her knees and twisted. The cardboard was mangled. Red sauce was splattered across one of the blankets a solid four feet above them and, from the feel of it, down her back. Well, shit. So much for her sexy negligee and apology date night. Was there anything she couldn’t ruin?

“Damn it.” She sat down in the blanket fort. “I’m sorry. This was supposed to be special.”

“Oh, it’s definitely special,” Luke said, barely concealing a grin. He extended his hand to her, and she took it. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

He pulled her to her feet and led her down the hallway.

“The shower.” Then he scooped her up and flew up the stairs. He didn’t seem to mind that his hand was directly in the marinara danger zone. Maybe the black negligee wasn’t wasted after all.

“I love you like this,”Luke said. His head was propped in his hand, and he stretched the length of the blanket fort.

Claire paused midway through a slightly mangled bite of pizza. “Like what? A failure with pizza sauce in my butt crack?”

“No.” He leaned forward and pressed another kiss to her neck.

Her once perfectly curled hair hung down her bare back in wet ringlets, and all her makeup had been washed away during a very interesting shower. She hadn’t bothered to glance in the mirror, but she probably looked like a busty Marilyn Manson who had just run a 5k in the desert.

“Relaxed. Happy. Natural.” He brushed a finger beneath her eyelid. A smudge of something black rubbed off.

Claire smiled. “I spent a lot of time on that makeup, you know.”

“Oh, sure. And don’t get me wrong, you scorched the pants right off me. But you don’t need it.”

She dabbed her mouth with a napkin and leaned forward. Her lips pressed to his. It might have been slightly garlicky, but it filled her with warmth.

The tension that had been between them since the missed dinner had trickled away. Here, in a blanket fort with no cell phones, no laptops, and no distractions, it felt like the day he had swept her around the ballroom while they were practicing for Nicole’s proposal—heat, excitement, and an indescribablefeeling of being home. In just over a year’s time, Luke had transformed from a grumpy, arrogant filmmaker who criticized her every step to a grumpy, arrogant film maker who made harnesses for blind dogs and had created a home with Claire. They had faced family secrets, mothers who wanted to strangle each other, and crazy stalker exes who climbed drain pipes or started dating their arch nemeses. While this latest setback had been a pretty devastating one, at least they had each other.

“Tell me about your day,” she said, breaking apart and shoving the pizza box at him. “I want to hear everything.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

To Do:

- Plan another date night. Maybe a series?

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